Eliane Elias ascends to a new
echelon of artistic expression with the August 30, 2019 release of Love Stories
on Concord Jazz. A multi-hyphenate musician whose recent releases Made in
Brazil (2015), Dance of Time (2017) and Man of La Mancha (2018) have earned her
multiple GRAMMY Award wins and No.1 Billboard chart debuts, Elias’ new
orchestral project serves as a classic homage to love in its many facets and
forms.
Love Stories is an orchestral album, revealing Elias’
mastery and preeminence as a multifaceted artist – a vocalist, pianist,
arranger, composer, lyricist and producer. Sung almost entirely in English, the
album features three original compositions plus seven superb arrangements of
pieces from bossa nova’s golden age, including songs made famous by Frank
Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
As both an interpreter and composer, Elias inhabits the rich
tradition of bossa while bringing the music into the present. She infuses
familiar songs with unexpected twists that intensify the music’s evocative
power – whether by creating harmonic modulations that enhance a lyric or
shifting the rhythmic feel of a section to heighten its emotion – allowing the
subtle complexities of her voice to take centerstage, all the while.
Noting that romantic love is just one of a wide range of
ways the emotion gets manifested, Elias says, “The idea for this album was to
bring to life various stories of love and loving through this collection of
songs.”
As she tells those stories, Elias brings a depth of feeling
to the album that comes courtesy of her evocative approach as a pianist and
singer as well as the precision with which she’s able to execute her musical
vision.
“From the moment of conception, it couldn’t be more
integrated,” she explains. “From the first note that’s chosen, every color I
create in the arrangements, the modulations, the choice of keys, the small
group arranging, the possibilities for orchestra – it’s as deep into my
personal taste as it can go…because I’m envisioning the arrangement; deciding
how to convey the song and perform it with the band, and being mindful of the
future orchestrations all at once.”
For the album, Elias invited some of her favorite Brazilian
rhythm section players to join her – Marcus Texiera on guitar and Edu Ribeiro,
Rafael Barata and Celso Almeida on drums – plus her core collaborators,
co-producer and bassist Marc Johnson and co-producer Steve Rodby. Orchestrator
Rob Mathes returns for his fourth recording with Elias as well, bringing his
lush string arrangements into flawless sync with Elias’ rich harmonic and
varied rhythmic approaches, as he did on her GRAMMY Award-winning 2015 album,
Made in Brazil.
A celebrated interpreter of Jobim, Elias sees undercurrents
of his long collaborative history with orchestrator Claus Ogerman in the
working relationship she’s developed with Mathes.
Says Johnson: “Rob’s orchestrations all go so deep and are
so beautifully intertwined with Eliane’s small group arrangements. He also
understands voice distribution so well. He’s said that in the process of
writing the arrangements, he immerses himself in the recorded basic tracks,
and, in even more detail, into Eliane’s piano voicings. Rob is absolutely on
the same emotional wavelength as Eliane.”
This emotional connection is essential given the
circumstances from which the album was born. Elias began working on the music
for Love Stories through a difficult year in which she lost her father, and
four months prior to his passing, fractured her shoulder in an accident in her
hometown of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She was rendered virtually immobile for months
while recovering in her apartment there. As she recuperated, her window view of
breeze-tickled palm trees and balconies against the blue Sao Paulo sky became
the backdrop for a new set of musical inspiration.
“During that period, I wasn’t allowed to move, my left arm
was in a sling and so to avoid surgery I had to stay immobilized and really
still,” she recalls. “Meanwhile, I created and wrote all of these arrangements
in that state.”
The album opens with a tone-setting bossa nova groove and
Elias’ sensual, velvety voice, inspiring us with the message of taking a chance
on love, from the vintage pop gem of Frances Lai’s theme song from the
Oscar-winning 1966 French film, “A Man and a Woman.”
It’s a seamless jump from that to Elias’ take on “Baby, Come
to Me.” Made famous in the early ’80s by Patti Austin and James Ingram, the
song gets reworked here in characteristic Elias fashion, as she smoothly moves
from a bossa nova to a hybrid Latin feel, with brilliant harmonic and tempo
modulations. Added to the backdrop of soaring strings and rich piano voicings,
the tune becomes altogether new.
“I like the message of cultivating a relationship, of
keeping the romance alive when you find someone you love.” says Elias, who
enlisted yet another of her go-to collaborators, Take 6’s multiple GRAMMY
Award-winning Mark Kibble, to cover the background vocals.
There’s a heartfelt vulnerability to Elias’ lilting,
expressive singing on “Bonita,” a dreamy rendition of one of Jobim and
Sinatra’s late ’60s collaborations that features some lovely interplay between
the piano and orchestra alongside Elias’ delicate and nuanced vocal phrasing.
“It’s a very pure expression of someone who wants their love
to be accepted and returned,” Elias says.
The Sinatra homage continues with a twinkling, sexy take on
“Angel Eyes,” followed by a brilliant rendition of “Come Fly with Me” that’s
re-imagined with a Brazilian groove and carries the listener away with a
passionate, high-flying piano solo.
Elias explores yet another aspect of love on her warm toned
original “The Simplest Things,” a rich and multi-layered musing on a love that
has stood the test of time. The message here – about looking back on a love
that’s matured and discovering that “the simplest things are the wonderful
things” in that shared life – is a profound and sweet universal truth that we
can all relate to.
On “Silence,” the album’s second original piece, the mood is
decidedly more intense as Elias channels the protagonist of the story’s
anguish. “My voice here is the most exposed on the album,” Elias says. “I
believe that most everyone has experienced disappointment or disillusionment at
some point in their lives. The question is how does one respond to that?”
A bright and buoyant rendition of “Little Boat,” where you
can almost feel the waves gently undulating in time with Elias’ rocking piano
solo, changes the mood again. Roberto Menescal, the song’s composer, plays the
guitar on this track and the opening verse features the only moment on the
recording in which Elias sings in Portuguese.
The album closes with one more original, “The View.” This
story is a bit more adult and complicated, given its suggestive imagery.
There’s a rendezvous and a vision of a woman rolling down her stockings – but
her apparition is almost like a dream or an angel. “The story is about
something more internalized,” says Elias, “somewhere between reality and
imagination, erotic yet pure in love and love’s expression.”
It’s also an appropriately complex finish to an album that
digs deep musically to shine new light on one of our deepest human experiences.
In the process, it offers a portrait of an incomparable artist whose sound
resonates from decades of experience – in music as in life.
Of the connection with her instrument Elias has said, “the
piano is an extension of my body and the deepest expression of my soul.” Love
Stories proves her voice now occupies that place, as well.
Track Listing:
1. A Man and a Woman (3:15)
2. Baby Come to Me (5:02)
3. Bonita (5:52)
4. Angel Eyes (5:25)
5. Come Fly with Me (5:52)
6. The Simplest Things (3:59)
7. Silence (4:04)
8. Little Boat (5:48)
9. The View (4:17)
